Shared Experience: Art and War

Via Dolorosa, Ortona

Soldiers of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade fight their way through the streets of Ortona towards the Piazza San Tommaso, late in December 1943. In his 1956 memoir, Comfort wrote of his first response to seeing the destruction of Ortona: “One felt a choking claustrophobia in the place. Everywhere was misery, death, and destruction. I could not possibly paint, or even sketch, on that first dreadful visit.”